Survival games seem to be my thing. So when my buddy pointed out Green Hell was on sale, I jumped on that faster than a leech on bare skin.
Green Hell, developed by Creepy Jar out of Poland, really dives into the trials of survival with both feet. It pulls no punches when you’re dumped into the starting area of the Amazon. Not only do you have to perfectly balance food, water, survival, and exploring, but if you don’t do it well enough, you are going to die. Food and water, building, gathering, hunting, and exploring are dialed up in this game. Food has three sub-types you have to balance, carbs, protein, and fats. Drinking is not so easy if you can’t first clean the water. Contract parasites? Well, I hope you know how to cure them. Oh, and of course there’s the wildlife trying to kill you. This is the Amazon after all. Bugs, four-legged beasts, and even cannibal tribes all want a piece of you, and each one brings dangers. This game is absolutely brutal if you’re not prepared. And you’d think, no problem, I’ll just build my way to safety. Well, my friend, you would be in for a shock because you, as a Dr of some kind, know absolutely nothing about surviving. You are not Les Stroud, you will die on your first play-through, or until you figure out how to live in style. And this is where the game survival kind of drops off a cliff.
Once you master the survival mechanics and what heals or kills you, then you’re fine. After a few rough lessons, my buddy and I got to a point in the game where we really didn’t need to rely on our home camp. Now, the survival mechanics may drop off at this point in your gaming experience, but what you also find, if you’re playing the story, is a DEEP and emotional story about loss, sacrifice, and redemption. The story was by far, the biggest surprise in this game. Normally survival game stories are surface-level. Most, don’t even really revolve around the environment you are in. Not Green Hell. The very Amazon itself is part of the story, and it’s up to you to figure it out.
That said, there were some dropped opportunities, and missed spots for us. Notably at the end, to get the good ending, we kind of knew what had to be done, or at least we had an idea to try. But what we missed, was a simple… blind moment. I guess you could say. We had been all over the second to last area of the game before reaching the last “area” of the game. We walked passed the place we needed to go a few times, and I even walked up to it and STARED directly at the spot we needed to go. Some of the stuff you want to make, because logically I should be able to mix things together to get a tool, which in fact, doesn’t make anything. Obsidian arrowheads?? Nope. Speaking of bows in general… Well, no spoilers here.
There are some bugs in the code. Some wonky things occur sometimes. The game crashes hard sometimes too, which is frustrating. The graphics are decent. The sound is pretty good. It would be nice if some of the animal sounds were fine-tuned. Monkeys in the trees would be awesome to have.
In all however, Green Hell is a solid survival title, and I highly recommend you pick it up.